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KING OF THE BLACK ISLES 







% I 











OF THE 


Islack 

Isles 

- - 

J. U. Sh(icolson 


CHICAGO 

COVICI-McGEE CO. 
1924 




Copyright 1924 
COVICI-McGEE CO. 

CHICAGO 


TS3JTZ7 

.T42. 


FEB 18 '24 


Press of 
Printing 
Service 
Company, 



Chicago 


©C1A777169 


<Vv<v 


Before the Curtain 


OME two years ago in the Line o* Type 
column of the Chicago Tribune, con¬ 
ducted by Richard Henry Little, 
occurred one of those sudden flurries of 
excitement that are the life of column 
conducting. There appeared a poem, 
“most musical, most melancholy,” over the magical 
pseudonym “The King of the Black Isles.” Response to 
the new voice was immediate and general. The con¬ 
ductor was showered with letters requesting more verse 
from this poet potentate, which, in due course, was 
vouchsafed. Since then “The King’s” success has been 
confirmed, and not only in his first demesne but in other 
Chicago columns. In Hit or Miss on the Chicago Daily 
News and in Pillar to Post on the Chicago Evening Post 
his poems have been waited for, welcomed, clipped and 
pasted into scrapbooks. In mediums where good verse is 
no rarity his success has been conspicuous. 

The appeal of J. U. Nicolson—behold “The King 
of the Black Isles” unmasked!—is an ancient magic. 
Musical before anything else, his masters are the singing 
poets from Villon to Swinburne. His escape from our 
perturbed and petty present lies most often in the pomps 
and splendors of the past. Even in love he is not too 
immediate. It is the still glowing embers of passion that 










he prefers to contemplate wistfully, yet with no lack of 
warmth when all is said. In this romantic field we can 
think of no American poet that parallels Nicolson at this 
moment. For putting life and lure into the past, he 
stands among current poets as a Sabatini among novelists. 

Much could be said of the music of these poems, the 
result of no ordinary skill with metres. But that is beside 
the point of this preface, which we write as a column 
editor to attest the very unusual success Mr. Nicolson has 
scored with column readers. Demanded by many, we 
count on this collection to make the author still more 
new friends outside the column circle. 

Keith Preston. 


CONTENTS 


To. 

If. 

A Lady Lived in Lesbos . 

The Streets of Hell 

In Passing. 

To a Pretty Woman . 

String Stars for Pearls 

Reconciliation. 

Song for Advancing Age . 
Futility of Singing 
A Wander Song . 

Of Mist and Air . 

Romance .. 

One Day . 

Shall Someone Sing? . 

Monody. 

From Haunted Halls . 

The King of the Black Isles . 
In Babylon, In Babylon . 

Pique . 

Then Cometh Atropos 
A Drinking Song . 

Sailor Song. 

Song. 

I’ll Run No More . 

Song to be Said at Daybreak . 
Love is a Thief . 

To Columbine. 

If I Remember . 

Bathsheba. 

Exile. 

A Christmas Idyll . 

And One With Secret Tears 

Degradation. 

I Said I Would Not Bind Me . 


On CO tO I—''©\000-40NCOi£*.CO~40\Cn£».Wrs3l—'O'0C0^JO\Cn^ WMH 1 
































Old Ships . 

Before Dawn. 

Renunciation. 

To Leave in May . . . • 

I Would Remember Constant Things . 

Afterwards. 

Chansonette D’Amour. 

Mood. 

A Lament. 

Whaler’s Chantey. 

Wild. 

Way of a Maid With a Man . 

Beauty. 

For Love is of the Valley . 

Chanson de Mystere. 

Sonnets of a Minnesinger .... 

Borgia. 

Napoleon. 

To a Poet Dying Young . 

Vikings. 

In Memoriam. 

Old Maid. 

The Jest. 

To Omar Khayyam. 

Bosworth Field. 

Ballade of Mutability. 

Ballade of Two Ladies . 

Ballade in Time of the Great War . 

Paris—1456 . 

Ballade of Ladies of Times Gone By . 
Ballade of Lost Illusion . 

Rondel. 

Rondeau of Rest. 

Sestina of One Face Fair . 

Rime-Royal . . »•. 

Hendecasyllabics. 

Sapphics. 

Alcaics. 

Prophecy. 


47 

48 

58 

59 

60 

61 

62 

63 

64 

65 

66 

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68 

73 

74 

76 

85 

86 

87 

88 

89 

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91 

92 

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96 

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KING OF THE BLACK ISLES 










% • 


























The King of the Black Isles 


TO- 

Unto the end and beyond the end! 

For out of my dust a rose shall grow 
And out of my heart a wind shall go 
To carry the scent of the rose to you, 

Till you, too, into the dust descend 
To lie beside me the long night through. 


[ 1 ] 



The King of the Black Isles 


IF 

If I should make a song for you, 
What would you do with it? 

Sing it to a new lover 

Or only sigh and sit? . . . 

The wind among the maple trees, 
Murmuring in your hair. 

Is older than a melody 
Of any lute player. 

And rain upon a quiet beach. 
Droning over the sand. 

Can tell of kings in Avalon 

And queens in Samarcand. . . . 

If I should make a song for you. 
What would you have me sing? 

Semiramis or the crack o’ dawn 
Or a posy for a ring? 


[ 2 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


A LADY LIVED IN LESBOS 

A lady lived in Lesbos a weary time ago; 

So many years have overpassed it’s little we can know; 
So many wars have worn away, with Gods and creeds 
and kings. 

It’s little we remember now of older, happier things. 

For men go up and down the land, under and over the 
seas 

(A lady lived in Lesbos, but what is that to these?) 

And men sit watching, night by night, how Mars the 
planet spins 

And women sit and gossip over marriages and sins. 

We have forgotten beauty and all our Gods are good. 
And little we remember now the dryads and the wood, 
And only old philosophers and foolish dreamers know 
What lady lived in Lesbos a weary time ago. 


[ 3 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


THE STREETS OF HELL 

When I go down the streets of Hell, 

Go swaggering down the streets of Hell, 
Then I shall see the great ones pass 
In gorgeous golden cars— 
Bonaparte and Prester John 
And Charlemagne and Genghis Khan 
And all the glorious kings—alas!— 
That passed beneath the stars. 

And only on the streets of Hell, 

The murky, turbulent streets of Hell, 
Shall I behold the blood-red curls 
Of slain Semiramis, 

Pompadour and the priceless tear 
That Arthur loved as Guinevere 
And all the wonderful wanton girls 
That damned a king with a kiss. 


[ 4 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


IN PASSING 

There was a road a-winding, a little road a-winding. 

And over hills and under hills it led me far away, 

Past barley fields and hamlets and busy mills a-grinding. 
And came upon a city at the closing of the day— 

The burnished roofs were blinding at the closing of 
the day. 

There was a woman weaving, a silent woman weaving. 
She sat within a shop door and she raised her eyes to 
mine. 

And suddenly the clamor was hushed beyond believing 
And all the air was pleasant for the smell of eglan¬ 
tine 

And all her face was grieving for the smell of eglan¬ 
tine. 

It was the time when roses, when fettered, redolent roses 
Are shaken by the freedom of some passionate night¬ 
ingale 

That wantons from a hillside and through a garden’s 
closes. 

Singing of Mytilene or a lovely Theban vale— 

Where Itylus reposes in a lovely Theban vale. 

We two are long in sunder, forever now in sunder. 

For many roads of many lands have led me far away. 
But always I shall fancy, or over hills or under, 

I see a silent woman at the closing of the day— 

What does she weave, I wonder, at the closing of the 
day? 


[ 5 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


TO A PRETTY WOMAN 

You are a bugle blown for a weary bivouac; 

You are the splendor of blood on burnished blades; 
You are the west wind over a waste of sedges; 

And you are a teak-wood cabinet filled with jades. 

You are a topaz burned alone in a casket; 

You are a glass to be drained and flung to the floor; 
You are a reed that one might fashion for music; 

You are a woman and you are nothing more. 

But in your eyes are the flames that flow in an opal; 

Your mouth is hot as a roseleaf crushed from a rose; 
You are the lie and the lure of all that is beauty . . . 
And how I shall ever be quit of you now—God knows! 


[ 6 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


STRING STARS FOR PEARLS 

String stars for pearls on a ribbon of whim 
And fling it about her shoulders; 

Carve cups from coral and crust each brim 
Till the whole gem smokes and smolders; 

Bring gold for beating in thick bright rings 
And honey from hearts of clover: 

But love will long for the absent things, 
Ever the old earth over. 

Go, ride the world in a glory of wars 
And startle the Gods to wonder; 

Break men to follow triumphant cars 
With a rose-paved road thereunder; 

Pile stone on stone for the bruit of a name 
When a thousand years dissever: 

But love will lean to a smaller flame 
Forever and forever. 


[71 


The King of the Black Isles 


RECONCILIATION 

When I am dead and deep in dust. 

So you but plant a rose-tree there, 
Get back to labor and to lust 

And weep no more nor greatly care. 

The quick they have so much to learn, 
The dead they have so much to do, 

If but your roses bloom and burn, 
There shall be peace between us two. 


% I 


[ 8 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


SONG FOR ADVANCING AGE 

We’ll flush our youth with wine no more nor pour the 
old libations. 

Our pleasant Gods and beautiful have all been over¬ 
thrown 

And those that reign are bitter Gods raised up by savage 
nations 

That flung their heavy swords across the goods we 
called our own. 

’Tis true the evil tribes will pass and true the evil rabble 

Will fawn at Caesar’s chariot wheels for gold and cakes 
and games. 

But Greece hath only lechery to lend the Roman Babel 

And all the conquered Orient hath only creeds and 
shames. 

Oh, beat your breasts and tear your hair and call for 
Coriolanus, 

The empty heavens answer not, the winds blow on 
before, 

And moth and rust creep in behind the close-barred 
gates of Janus— 

And there’ll be those to laugh again, but we’ll be 
young no more! 


[ 9 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


FUTILITY OF SINGING 

In rain and wind I made a song of her, 

A little sweet sad song for ease of pain, 

Full of blown gold and silver, lovelier 

Than April’s dancing in the wind and rain. 

I made a song of her upon the sands 

While yet the darkening west was all ablaze, 
Singing her face, from many ways and lands. 
Beyond the seas through many lands and ways. 

And then I made a song of her, at last, 

Wherein were only tenderness and rest 
And dreams long time remembered of the past 
And dusk of hair let down upon her breast. 

And all my songs are music, all my songs 
Are music as of harp and dulcimer, 

But I can strike no chord wherein belongs 
The melody of the mystery of her. 


[ 10 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 
A WANDER SONG 

Emerald seas and seas of agate wandering under the sky. 

And I would loiter the world around or ever I come to 
die— 

Or ever I come to die, Love, and to say farewell to you— 

With only a cook and a cabin boy and a lazy Lascar crew. 

They’ve amber sands in the Coral Isles and little or no 
restraint 

And God has painted the misty hills as only God can 
paint; 

As only God can paint, Love, where the copra schooners 
ply 

Through emerald seas and seas of agate wandering under 
the sky. 

A bulbul sobs in a citron-tree that blooms in Samarcand 

And the song of a Sufi haunts the night for those who 
understand. 

For those who understand. Love, and the hidden lutes 
reply. 

And I would loiter the world around or ever I come 
to die. 

Oh, I would barter my goods away and I would leave 
mine ease 

To follow the gull and the albatross in the winds that 
walk the seas. 

In the winds that walk the seas, Love, with a lazy Lascar 
crew. 

Or ever I come to die, Love, and to say farewell to you. 


[ 11 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


OF MIST AND AIR 

The Gods are old and sad and wise. 

Since they were made by aged men 
For whom desire in woman’s eyes 
And madness would not come again. 

The Gods are cold and grave and stern, 

Wrought marvelously of mist and air— 

Though roses bloom and roses burn 
Sweet as a woman’s hair! 

Young lips will fasten hard on lips. 

Young hearts will brave through turbulent seas; 
Song and the ways of tall swift ships 
And wild swift words are dear to these. 

Vanity, vanity! All things pass, 

Lost in the wars of wind and wave— 

And who hath seen beneath the grass 
A God’s hand reached to save? 

Oh, choice of follies! Give me now 
To swagger through romantic streets 
As he that paints Aspasia’s brow 

On every laughing wench he meets! 

Give me my bubbling veins again. 

May’s madness and May’s mystery, 

And all the Gods of all old men 
May part and cease to be! 


[ 12 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


ROMANCE 

There was a queen in Nineveh 
And there were queens in Tyre 
And Egypt had a fair queen 
As ever men desire. 

Upon her throne in Camelot 
Sat burning Guinevere, 

And Eleanor in Aquitaine 
With an opal on her ear. 

These women are but drifting dust. 
And who is there to say 
That all their loveliness and lust 
Bother men today? 

But I must make a little song 
And make it fair and sweet. 
Because a wanton smiled at me 
A-walking down the street. 


[ 13 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

ONE DAY 

As I went out through Michigan, went motoring out 
through Michigan, 

Where deep the dark Muskegon ran to seek its western 
sea, 

I heard a song that filled the dawn, the radiant, rampant, 
golden dawn— 

“Into the west my lad has gone, who will remember 

me?” 

Oh, blue the lakes of Michigan, blue as the skies of 
Michigan, 

And blue were the eyes of Marianne who sang that 
lover’s lay, 

Yellow as corn her blowing hair (the sun was a glory on 
her hair) 

And ruddy her lips when, halting there, I kissed the 
song away. 

I know the woods of Michigan and all the hills of Michi¬ 
gan, 

And never shall I forget that Pan still pipes a pagan 
lay 

And never shall I forget the wind (the grass of the up¬ 
land knows the wind). 

Luring the lazy clouds of Ind over the world away. 

But red were the lakes of Michigan, red as the skies of 
Michigan, 

And red were the eyes of Marianne who wept where 
none could see 

When I drove into the sunset glow, the windy, weltering, 
western glow. 

And oh, the burden of pride, and oh, the ache of a 
dream in me! 


[ 14 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


SHALL SOMEONE SING? 

When bright with gold Cuchulain’s brand 
Flung silver death to the breasts of men, 

What braid, by strand and ruddier strand, 

Was dyed in the red dew falling then? 

What queen of a misty realm or girl 
Of the Everliving by some lone sea 
Wove her hands in a kindred curl 

And keened in the wan wind anxiously? 

Who was the woman great with love 
That Sargon left at the Persian hills 
For a gem set deep in gold whereof 

The song of a war-king throbs and thrills? 

In a chamber painted with all delight, 

In a bower blushed with a rhythm of rose. 
What princess wept alone in the night 

And wept in the dawn alone—who knows? 

O fair young girls blown over with dust 
And blown like dust on the desert, now. 

What kings have kissed you, livid with lust. 
Having gold on breast and delicate brow? 

And O my girl that I kiss tonight, 

When the world has circled a thousand years 
Shall someone sing of your dead delight 

And strike from a sounding string your tears? 


[ 15 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


MONODY 

The hills are painted with glory. 

The seas are heavy with sound 
And one may look on the wide sky 
The whole year round. 

There is no end of beauty 
And never an end of song 
And one may harbor a deep dream 
All life long. 

And June comes over with rose9 
And memories, one by one, 

But the kiss we ’changed on a dim day— 
That is done. 


[ 16 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


FROM HAUNTED HALLS 

If we should meet, my love and I, 

At our old garden gates, alone. 

And see our Spanish castle lie 
A crumbling ruin, ivy-grown, 

Would we go thence, my love and I, 

To some small cottage near a stream 
Or—oft I ponder—would we sigh 

And part to mourn a shattered dream? 

If we should meet, my love and I, 

And stand without the broken door, 
Well might we fear what now must lie 
Where happiness was housed of yore. 
And would we dare, my love and I, 
Cover a meaner hearth and walls 
With arras of a day gone by 

And trophies torn from haunted halls? 


[ 17 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


THE KING OF THE BLACK ISLES 

Pale in the silver armor of its dreams# 

The soul loves not to wake within the night 
Where, haply, but one watchful candle gleams 
Between what threatening shadows dare the light, 
But, rather, strives with all it may of might 
To hold the magic battlements of sleep 
Which look upon wide valleys, rich and bright. 

And happy homes and herds and rivers deep 
And fountains of desire from which men wake and weep. 

To wake and weep—that, surely, is a thing 
Which all men suffer under the old stars, 

Since all men born are born to sorrowing 
In quiet days, remembering splendid wars. 

Though woman’s eyes become swift avatars 
Flamed marvelously across mysterious ways 
And summer sighs among the deodars 
With perfume of a passion that betrays, 

Low on a secret bed, her rose-rapt nights and days. 

Bound in the silken scents of night, I slept 
Upon a cloud of melody that rose 
From aloes and from almond trees and swept 
Over the couch, not breaking my repose. 

But flinging on my dream such mist as flows 
From censers hung along the walls of Heaven 


[181 


The King of the Black Isles 


And drugs us out of time and space and blows 
Infinity within our ken and even 
That ecstasy of peace to which the Gods are given. 

Was it some bulbul fainter than the rest, 

Luring my heart to follow his wild throat, 

That stilled the burdened pulses in my breast 
With loss of louder music, note by note? 

Was it that streaming loveliness remote, 

Like opals poured from pitchers of deep glass, 
Which, ending in a sudden silence, smote 
Hard on my ear as clangor of fierce brass? 

Ah, harder in the dark for beauty that must pass! 

Ah, no! It was the sound of whispering 
Where slaves within the chamber chanted shame, 
Whimpering out of dread that I the king 
Might wake before a woman turned and came 
Unto her bed and mine . . . ah, she whose name 
My young pride blazoned over ancient walls 
What time I brought her—feather of my fame!— 
To share my throne and fill my fathers’ halls 
With laughter clear as dryads’ at sylvan waterfalls. 

For sometime I was king of these Black Isles, 
Crowned gloriously with honor and with love. 

My realm was bounded by unmeasured miles, 

My gold was as the unnumbered sands thereof; 
Before my throne all men bowed down, above 
Reigned the sweet voice of my soul’s ortolan 
So trusted as one trusts a nesting dove . . . 


[ 19 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


How could I dream she played the courtezan? 

Yet see me what I am—half marble and half man! 

They wantoned in the garden. On his breast 
Her hosom, all white lilies on black fur. 

Moved and her mouth moved, sobbing without rest 
For thirst of love that would not ease in her. 

She drank down kisses as the wine-bibber 
Drinks from long cups and ever cries out “More!” 
Till I, who stood with trembling scimiter, 

Marveled and mused and for a time forebore 
To deal them death, for shame of being their auditor. 

I know not whence it is, but in wild love 
There is a kind of grandeur, as if then 
The soul flings off all flesh and fear thereof. 
Striding out naked in the sight of men. 

Who pause and stand a little in awe, as when 
They look on courage moving with calm breath 
And high, stern heart upon some denizen 
Of darkness and the doubtful caves of death. 
Serene of faith in honor and in honor’s faith. 

What angel or what evil unknown djinn, 

Ranging from midmost regions of the air. 

Found out her woman’s heart to wander in 
And ruin us with reign of madness there? 

Could not her eyes foresee their own despair? 

Was she not privy to what dangers lay 
But in a whisper, in a slave’s wan stare. 

When all the palace marked her face betray 


[ 20 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

A night’s fierce fires of love yet smoldering through the 
day? 

Ah, God, she was delightful unto me! 

Her breasts were fashioned for kissing all night long; 
Smoother than amber burnished by the sea. 

The arches of her feet were smooth and strong; 

Her hair was woven of silken flame and song; 

Her mouth more bruised for honey than honeycomb; 
And on her brows lay no more shadow of wrong 
Than on the sails of laden ships blown home. 

Far out of spice-rapt lands, on waves flung white with 
foam. 

Exquisite in my garden of dead kings, 

Her beauty burned along some fountain’s brim 
Like fire of gems in heavy golden rings, 

Like rubies in a God’s eyes, hallowing him; 

Her curious garments whispered, limb to limb, 

How all that body bore them in proud grace 
Or in the glade of tamarinds, deep and dim. 

Or loitering on the dusty market-place— 

Even through a woman’s veils, men marked the royal 
race. 

I made a wondrous palace on this wise: 

The floors wrought well of onyx and sweet wood, 

The walls of jasper, and I bade devise 
High, delicate roofs that pictured all things good; 
One room was saffron and one red like blood 
And every room was entered through glad gold; 


[ 21 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


And pleasant for light breezes, though day stood 
Blazing his wrath against the nether cold. 

The courts about those halls murmured how long waves 
rolled. 

Damascus sent us diamonds; from the North 
Came caravans with sapphires; caravans 
Across the sands of Syria issued forth 
With silks and silver and spikenard; in sedans. 
Litters of leopards; jade and amber fans; 

Soft skins of lambs and brilliant skins of birds; 

And, silent, but with sunnier soul than man’s. 

Came apes from watching tropic moons like curds 
Churned in the vats of time by Gods too wise for words. 

Beauty being dead, what shall be said of her 
More than men say of dead men who were just? 
“One hour he had for music and for mvrrh 
Or ever within the worm-worn grave was thrust. 

One hour for labor and a little lust 
Before time quenched his passion in decay.” 

And who would seek to stir the unheeding dust? 

And who would have one further word to say? 

Ere he make end of saying, he shall be borne away. 

Now, therefore, it may well be said that bliss 
And all high beauty are no more to us 
Than deep remembrance of a dead rose is 
Which, in dead days, a live thing tremulous, 

Burned in the hair of one made glorious 
With kisses sown thick over brows and breast. 


[ 22 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


For as all passion passes, even thus 
Romance, with velvet fingers of unrest, 

Paints in the chrome of tears our lost loves loveliest. 

It is as if one riding to the night 
Looks back at some tall city and forgets 
The fetid ways, the squalor and the sight 
Of base men bowed to brutal epithets 
In watching those far towers and minarets 
Springing to golden domes magnificent 
With banners billowing on wide parapets, 

While rings from battlement and battlement 
The clang of trumpets blown for some young king’s 
ascent. 

Oh, then, farewell forever all desire! 

Farewell delight! And radiant reign farewell! 

I see the red west embered on the pyre 
Of day’s long glory, slain by Azrael 
Who walks in plumes, a dusky eentinel, 

Down all the lingering vistas of the light 
With emblems of his empery—asphodel 
And silver—and there closes on my sight 
The gloom of wings and all the mystery of night. 


[ 23 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


IN BABYLON, IN BABYLON 

In Babylon, in Babylon 
They made a harlot queen. 

And all the gold of all the world 
Was gathered there, I ween; 

And love was always young, there, 
And beauty always gay 
Upon the streets of Babylon, 
Before they passed away. 

In Babylon, in Babylon 
It was a queen’s delight 
To seek along the dark ways 
For lovers in the night; 

And men they came in armor 
And men they came in skins 
To eat the meats of Babylon 
And sip the wine of sins. 

In Babylon, in Babylon, 

The walls are fallen down 
And gone are all the princes 
And merchants of the town; 
The little laughing ladies 
And lords of bitter wars 
In all the halls of Babylon 
Are quiet as the stars. 


[ 24 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


PIQUE 

Get to your priest and altar 
And get to your bridal bed 
And let your lover be happy, 
What of your maidenhead! 

And you shall bear him daughters 
And you shall bear him sons, 
And God may give you a glory 
Greater than Solomon’s. 

And you may never remember 
Or, haply, never forget 
The dewy hands of Orion 
Belting a violet. 

But I shall sleep in a palace 
Or beg my wine and bread, 

For I can fiddle without you, 

You and your maidenhead! 


[251 


The King of the Black Isles 


THEN COMETH ATROPOS 

When first I went to London 
My heart and hopes were high. 
And there was not in all the town 
A man so proud as I; 

And Beauty smiled upon me 
And Wealth did not ignore. 
When first I went to London 
And called at Fortune’s door. 

When next I went to London 
I rode as kings may ride, 

So there was not in all the land 
A greater man beside; 

And Beauty bowed before me 
And Wealth could but implore, 
When next I went to London 
And mused at Fortune’s door. 

When last I went to London 
With darkness on mine eyes. 

Oh, there was not in all the world 
A man more deeply wise; 

Yet Beauty laughed and left me 
And Wealth stalked on before. 
When last I went to London 
And fawned at Fortune’s door. 


[ 26 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


A DRINKING SONG 

Gather ye, gather ye round! 

Let winter blow over the chimney! 

Gather ye, gather ye round! 

Fill tankards and mugs to the brim, nay. 

Here’s health to the feeble and strength to the strong. 
And life it is short and the grave it is long. 

So drink while you can, sir, and sing me a song! 

Come round, round, round! 

Gather ye, gather ye round! 

Here’s cheer for your trouble and sorrow! 

Gather ye, gather ye round! 

The devil may care for tomorrow! 

All ye that must labor for knight or for knave. 

There’s little to gain and there’s little to save 
And never a song nor a drink in the grave! 

Come round, round, round! 


[ 27 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


SAILOR SONG 

Let others break sod when the robins are nesting 
And sow for the harvest in valley and plain, 

My heart of a rover is wild to be breasting 

The surge of the surf and the might of the main. 
When the tang of the spring, like the sting of white spray. 
Comes to lure me and call me and dare me away, 

Oh, it’s ho! for the ropes and the sails they’ll be testing— 
I’m off to the sea in the wind and the rain! 

Let others sing songs of the joys of the byways. 

The trysts in the gloaming, the lays of the lark. 

Let others delight in the throngs on the highways, 

The bustle and babble from dawn unto dark. 

The droning of bees and the murmur of crowds 
Are drowned in the hymn of the hum of the shrouds, 
And it’s ho! for a ship to go booming down my ways, 

A sloop or a schooner, a brig or a bark. 

Let others for wealth or for wisdom be sighing, 

The world it is wide and the ways they are free. 

And today is today but tomorrow means dying. 

And what shall the money-bags matter to me? 

Oh, it’s ho and it’s hey and it’s hey and it’s ho! 

There are women and wine in the tavern, I know. 

But it’s ho! for the skies where the gray gulls are dying— 
I’m over the hills to the ships and the sea! 


[ 28 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


SONG 

The kings that fought for Helen 
Are gone like wraiths away, 

And all their wars are done now 
And all their lusts, for aye; 

But he that harped for Helen, 

His fingers strike and strum. 
Though Helen’s hands are dust now 
And Helen’s lips are dumb. 

And I dream dreams of Helen, 

As men shall dream for aye. 

Till all the prayers are said then 
And all the Gods are gray, 

For that the loves of Helen 
In so sweet words were sung 
When Helen’s grave was green then 
And Helen’s fame was young. 


[ 29 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


I’LL RUN NO MORE 

The moon is only a moon now 
And the mist is only mist; 

The lips of the roses on my brow 
But kiss as they always kissed; 

And arms of women of high degree. 
Though heavy with gifts of gold. 

Not always fetter the dreams of me, 
For I am growing old. 

I’ll run no more in the fierce dawn 
And I’ll strike my harp no more. 

The foolish lovers across the lawn 
But stroll as they strolled of yore. 

The tales of battle and might of men 
And the wonderful songs were sung 

Shall never be quite the same again— 
Oh, God!-for I was young! 


[ 30 ] 



The King of the Black Isles 


SONG TO BE SAID AT DAYBREAK 

I cannot think of other things for thinking of desire 

To burn a woman’s brows and breast with kisses flown 
with fire; 

Nor all the books of all the East and western sages’, too, 

Can aught avail to comfort me while this is yet to do. 

Beneath the lighted groins of night I sit and cannot 
speak 

Of gargoyles wrought in Gothic stone or griffins carved 
in Greek, 

But only of a woman’s grace: among the stars I see 

The bright and bitter beauty of a face that mocks at me. 

Oh, I will be a falconer, a trainer just and wise. 

And I will break my heart to hawk at bees and butterflies; 

And let it fly at random check or clip on lawful wings, 

I’ll ride the world in hunting green and think of other 
things! 


[ 31 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


LOVE IS A THIEF 

Oh break my harp, when I am dead, 
And bum my songs along with me 
And let no foolish prayers be said 
And no long wailing, bitterly, 

But, rather, when a morning star 
Blazes above the gates of God, 
Remember how no roses bar 
The ways you might have trod. 

And when you walk where then we met. 
If, haply, you grow sad for me, 

Forget that once we loved, forget 
My songs and sonnets, utterly! 

And oh, for summer days and sweet 
Under the roses, while you live 
Forbear the fragrance, overfleet, 

And, if you can, forgive! 


[ 32 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


TO COLUMBINE 

You ask me for a song, but I 

Would rather kiss your lips again 

Than sing the stars out, one by one, 
And name them, too, for men. 

And I would rather kiss your throat 
And kiss your closed white eyelids up 

Than have that gold by Helen’s breast 
Once moulded for a cup. 

You ask me for a song. Ah, Love, 
What bells unstruck can ever chime? 

But ring me with a kiss and I 

Will break your heart with rhyme! 


[33J 


The King of the Black Isles 


IF I REMEMBER 

I think I shall not overmuch 

Be grieved, when I am old and gray, 
For loss of kisses and the touch 
Of fingers on my face today; 

I think I shall not care at all 
For lips or looks or any love 
If only I can still recall 
The emptiness thereof. 

The mouth of maiden or the mouth 
Of courtezan or wanton dame 
Is always cruel as the South 
And always bitter as a flame. 

I think that if I but recall 

How lips will tire that once have met, 

I shall not ever care at all. 

But what if I forget? 


[341 



The King of the Black Isles 


BATHSHEBA 

I have been summoned; I have seen the king; 

And he hath granted all my long desire. 

He lieth upon his bed of sorrowing 

With lank and matted locks and mouth like mire; 

And there one twangleth ever at a wire; 

And round about are divers tongues to wag; 

But cold he lieth for all the hovering fire 
Of maiden Abishag. 

God knoweth her fairer now than any of us 
In even our good days gone! But what hath she? 
The wreck and ruin of one once valorous 
Who cannot break her vain virginity! 

Oh, let her glean from wan eyes watery 
Love’s leavings and from stiffening, waxen lips 
An old man’s kiss, enduring patiently 
An old man’s fingertips! 

I wonder would she marvel, could she know 
What I have known of David in the days 
When forth he rode to battle, long ago, 

In gold and crimson and with shield ablaze. 

How thronged the press of people, mouthing praise! 
How chariots thundered, car on glittering car. 

With storms of stallions darkening down the ways 
The king marked out for war! 


[ 35 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


It was no blinkard maunderer that came 
Upon the house-tops in the evening light 
While yet the day’s wide window burned with flame 
Poured gloriously along the hills of night; 

The man that watched me make my body white 
Stood strong athwart his kingdom and his pride 
Recked not of God for sufferance nor his might 
Of man for choice of bride! 

He sent for me and took me. Glad with gold 
His great hands broke that other’s hold of me, 
Howbeit Uriah’s heart beat high and bold. 

Nor would he fawn nor bend a warrior’s knee, 

But walked undaunted on his destiny- 

Sometimes I wake at night and think of him, 

A plain, brave man to merit honestly 
The welcoming Seraphim. 

And I remember-how shall I forget?- 

When David’s house was bare and men would come 
From costly courts ambassadors and set 
Their gifts before the wild Prince Absalom, 

And how the king smiled ever and was dumb 
Or, musing over caskets rich with nard. 

Lifted his great head suddenly to the drum 
Where Joab changed the guard. 

There lay no leopards in the garden, then, 

Nor many women; and the king in hall 
Moved as a warrior moves among his men 
When there is equity between them all; 


[ 36 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


Yet I have seen him quell a drunken brawl, 
Striding like doom among the thrusting blades, 

As might a sunbeam thrown beyond a wall 
Dispel the gathered shades. 

And in those days there was a man to lie 
Upon a hard bed strewn along the floor, 

But sweeter for deep slumber than the high 
And perfumed couch that youth shall press no more 
And sweeter, ah, God! sweeter for love’s lore 
And all the secret works and words of love 
Than ever man and woman shared before 
Or ever dreamed thereof. 

Oh, God, my youth gone from me! Oh, the days 
When life was pleasant on my lips and tongue! 

The lordly banquets ringing round with praise! 
The harps were sounded and the songs were sung! 
The beauty of women, oh, like banners flung 
Silken and splendid over marching men! 

The lays, the lips, the loves when I was young 
Who shall not love again! 

Oh, flesh that I have fondled! Fingertips 
That burned me over like small tongues of fire! 

Oh, cruel kisses bitten through love’s lips! 

Oh, tears wrung deep from labor of desire! 

Oh, bitter, brief, bright ecstasies that tire 

Or ever their words are said between love’s breath! 

Oh, roses fallen from a smoldering pyre! 

Oh, gold rings damned with death! 


[ 37 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


And think not that for Nathan’s anger I 
Could ever scourge my spirit to regret. 

Though I had borne a score of babes to die 
In mockery of tears and bearing sweat, 

Yet had I been not less the queen and yet 
Not less the mother of a race of kings 
Then mated basely with a clown to get 
And breed up underlings. 

For Solomon shall reign! My son shall reign! 

The king hath heard my prayer and he hath sworn. 
And men are fled apart and Joab slain 
And Adonijah taken on the Horn. 

Ye women! Witness ye that I have borne 
A king, that I have borne a king to be 
A glory unto Israel and adorn 
Her God’s house royally. 

And I shall walk in scarlet and my feet 
Shall be shod on with leather and my hair 
Bound up with snakes of ivory made to meet 
And mate with amber serpents twisted there. 
Bleeding with rubies, I will work and wear 
Soft silks burned over with such priceless gems 
As only women of a king may tear 
From conquered diadems. 

The purple hearts of sapphires and the eyes 
Of topaz I will have and all my girls 
Shall gleam for bearing thick on breasts and thighs 
Those embers that are opals and for pearls 

• 


[ 38 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


Wept out of Heaven, long ago, where curls 
The lone South Sea to isles of amethyst. 

And emeralds more lovely than the whorls 
Of young leaves rimmed with mist. 

Dwellers in tents, the desert tribes shall come 
With fleeces whiter than a maiden’s feet; 

The Mede shall march with cymbal and with drum, 
The Scythian hordes with barley and fine wheat; 
And Tyre shall trade and Sidon end and treat; 

And heathen nations from beyond the seas 
Shall give thick gold and all rare things and sweet 
And all things good for ease. 

The cities of the world shall comfort thee, 

0 Israel! And all its laboring ships 
Shall bear their burdens to thy treasury 
And thou shalt be as one who sits and sips 
Honey and wine made cool with snow that drips 
From dark deep hollows in the tumbled hills 
And thou shalt have sweet savors at thy lips 
And no more taste of ills. 

Thou shalt go mailed in silver and thy shield 
Shall be of beaten burnished plates of gold; 

The color of thy kings’ tents pitched in field 
Shall be of Tyrian purple. Who shall hold 
Triumphantly against thee, as of old? 

And who shall bear the shaking of thy spear? 

Thy days have not been numbered nor been told 
The deeds that thou shalt hear. 


[ 39 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

For lo, now, God hath raised a young man up 
To judge thee and to weld thy tribes in one; 
And thou shalt eat with justice and thy cup 
Shall brim with mercy under Solomon; 

And all that live and move beneath the sun 
Shall know thee what thou art; and every clime 
Shall praise thee; and the lords of Babylon 
Shall fear thee out of time. 

There never shall be any more at all 
Forgetfulness of thee, forever; thou 
Shalt be a deathless beauty mystical 
In woven veils of temples; on thy brow 
The morning star shall flame, as even now. 

Till Eden be re-opened and the bar 
Against thy sins and sufferings allow 
Peace and the evening star. 


[401 


The King of the Black Isles 


EXILE 

I’ll not return to Arcady 

Though you are going there, 

Nay, though you heckon me to come 
With vine leaves in your hair. 

The way is strange, the road is long. 
The wild west wind is cold 
And I should miss a face I knew 
In Arcady of old. 

I’ll not return to Arcady. 

Today I saw a boy 
Blow kisses to a little maid 
Who laughed in wanton joy, 

And as he swaggered down the street, 
A song upon his tongue, 

The whole wide world was Arcady 
To him, for he was young. 


[ 41 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


A CHRISTMAS IDYLL 

There were three mages of the East 
Went bearing gifts to make a feast 
And came to Bethlehem. 

The first mage brought of frankincense 
Full goodly store for reverence 
In woven anadem; 

The second, in his mantle’s fold. 

Bare beaten silver and red gold; 

Whiles for an harbinger 
There flamed a strange white Star in Heaven, 
Waxen more bright than planets seven; 

The third mage carrieth myrrh. 

All weary in a tavern shed 
Lay Mary that was brought to bed 
Of Godis only Son. 

And Mary had for handmaidens 
Three women that were never men’s 
To wive as all men wonn. 

Two damsels were right fair and sweet. 

The third wore over hands and feet 
Amber from sea-side ta’en. 

And Mary’s cloke was soft with fur 


[ 42 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


And a gold girdle belted her 

Of writhen serpents twain. 

Three mages stand upon the straw. 

They lifted up their eyne and saw 
The Blessed Babe; and laid 
Down treasures of bright Eastern kings— 
Spikenard and gems and finger-rings 

And pearls and purple and jade— 
Whereat a golden beam of light 
Fell in slant wise athwart the night 
And Angels thronged thereon 
Came caroling from the Halls of Heaven, 
“Lo, unto us a Child is given 
And unto us a Son!” 


[ 43 ] 




The King of the Black Isles 


AND ONE WITH SECRET TEARS 

When high at noon Apollo rides 
Before the eyes of men. 

Unseen above her seething tides. 

Who speaks of Luna then? 

A man shall die, and, lost to creeds. 
Forget his dreams and fears. 

And one shall mourn in widow’s weeds 
And one with secret tears. 


[ 44 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


DEGRADATION 

Now, surely, I am twice a fool 

To break my heart by night and day 
Because a woman’s mocking lips 
Are turned away. 

I made her throbbing songs; I said: 

“ This one last time before I die 
I will pour life like water out 
Nor question why.” 

I said: “ I will burn out of me 
All lingering loves of other years 
And all old bitter wisdom learned 
With bitter tears.” 

And now the foolishness of this: 

Though she has only scorn of me, 

I think I am grown half in love 
With beggary! 


[ 45 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


I SAID I WOULD NOT BIND ME 

I said I would not bind me to be a slave of toil, 

To barter youth and gladness for any golden spoil; 

I said the stars were naked and the wild winds were free 
And I would have a free heart to round the world 
with me. 

I said I would not bind me, but one came tripping by. 
And there was laughter on her lip and promise in her eye, 
And when she left the wide road I followed down a lane 
To dwell among the toilers and toil among the grain. 

I said I would not bind me, but I have pawned my heart 
To buy a bit of farm-land, a cottage, and a cart. 

And how can I forgive them, the Liar and the Lie, 
That lured me from my wandering and brought me here 
to die? 


[ 46 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


OLD SHIPS 

The merchandise of all the earth 
Was theirs to bear: the merchandise 
Of autumn-scented wine for mirth 
In man’s eyes and in woman’s eyes, 

And gold and silver and soft silk 

And curious amber flecked with mist 
And all wrought ivory, white like milk, 

And oil and wool and amethyst. 

The ships of Carthage and the ships 
Of Tyre about the windy seas 
From isles of Ind where honey drips 
To the far Cimbric Chersonese 
And Rome’s triremes of saffron sails. 

With girls to grace an emperor’s feast, 

And Spanish galleons big with bales 

And junks of all the lecherous East. . . 

Their bones are bleached on shimmering coasts; 

At broken wharves they reek and rot; 

They walk the seas like grimly ghosts 
Of dead men out of days forgot. 

Old ships, old ships! The merchandise 
Of all the earth was theirs to bear 
When they were flown with enterprise 
And their dark hulls were fair. 


[ 47 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 
Guinevere : 

BEFORE DAWN 

This is the last time we shall ever meet. 

This is the last time, lying against thy feet, 

With hair let down like gold strewn over them, 
My fingers and my lips will touch thee, Sweet. 

Ah, hold me close and closer! Comfort me 
With kisses pressed across the long lone sea 
That even now sweeps, tide on surging tide, 
Between me and my longing after thee. 

How swift the moon runs down the sky tonight 
Like a white doe hunted by dogs of light! 

And all the color and wonder of the world 
Will pass with these last hours of her flight. 

And when the sonnets of the nightingales 
Have ended in the thickets in the swales. 

The dawn will course above an empty earth 
And all our loves will be as old wives’ tales. 

For never, though I live a thousand years, 

Shall prayer avail nor magic of deep tears 

To break my heart for kisses down my breast 
Or for thy fancied footsteps in my ears. 

And never, should we meet again in hall 
By chance of travel or as war may fall, 

Can we spring soul to soul, as in the time 
Moment by moment going beyond recall. 

[ 48 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


Dost thou remember how, upon a day 
When all the land burned blithely into May, 

A clump of spears came glancing to my gate 
And thou made’st one—and there was naught to say? 

For, seeing thee afar off, in my heart 
I had said truly where I leaned, apart, 

“ God help me now if thou art not the king! 

And oh, God help me if indeed thou art! ” 

Oh, gold upon a warrior’s helm by day! 

Oh, steel borne swiftly down the king’s highway! 

Oh, banners blown along the woods like flame! 

Oh, youth gone riding in the month of May! 

The hazel and the hawthorne and the pine, 

The violet’s purple and the purple vine— 

Dost thou remember, 0 my friend? And oh. 

The windy hillsides fired with eglantine? 

And thus by mountain mere and woodland grot 
And many a Druid shrine to Gods forgot. 

Till, flung along the sunset, royally, 

Golden with glory, the towers of Camelot. 

Ah, then, the days at banquet where the king 
Pledged all his knights, the roofs re-echoing. 

And thy grave eyes poured kisses in my cup 
For our own revels, wing to secret wing! 

Ah, then, the elfin music of the horns 
Wound in the woods away on hunting morns 

[ 49 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

When hearts went pagan, hearing on the wind 
Daughters of Odin singing of the Norns! 

And ah, the violent splendor of the lists 
And Dagonet dancing, hawks on motley wrists, 
While thou and Tristram, Gawain and Geraint 
Fought for my snood of pearls and amethysts! 

I would our Jives were over! Oh, would God 
We two were lying under the cold sod 

With rain and sun and snow thrown over us 
Forever as the seasons may be shod! 

Would God the winds had blown us out of time 
And all regret of roses and of rime 

And winnowed us among the mocking stars 
Farther than ever dreams have dared to climb! 

Would God, would God the seas of all the years 
Broke over us with salter waves than tears! 

That all the earth of mountains weighed us down 
Deeper in silence than the rolling spheres! 

But this is madness! Must I harrow thee 
With idle lamentation, seeing that we 

Have kissed our souls together? 0 my Love, 

Lie still a little longer! Bear with me! 

Once, long ago, when thou wast with the king 
Far in some pagan realm adventuring, 

I lay within my chamber, wanting sleep— 
Indeed, I cannot well resolve this thing! 

[ 50 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


Methought there came an Ancient through the wall, 

The stones and arras parting not at all, 

Bearing a wrinkled parchment and a staff, 

An older man than any in Arthur’s hall. 

How long time passed I know not. Head to head 
We stared. I could not know if he were dead. 

Till, speaking in a great low voice of doom, 
“Mordred!” the windy echoes murmured “-dred!” 

It was a night in winter. No man stirred. 

No scent of flower nor any song of bird; 

And only the fierce wolf-hound on the hearth 
Growled in his sleep as he had something heard. 

Ah, Mordred, son of Morgawse! Wilt thou yet 
Have tears and death and ruin for a debt 
Paid over with deep penance long ago 
Or ever the king was crowned or me had met? 

Must I, whose face lured Arthur from desire 
Of his own sister’s body, purge in fire 

And heartbreak all the secret shames and sins 
Thy mother made at incest, and thy sire? 

It might have been forever but for thee. 

And Lancelot still the prince of chivalry, 

Wearing my favor through a courtly world 
With none to leer, devising infamy. 

It might have been that God had pitied us 
Some day when days are ended, meaning thus 

[ 51 ] 



The King of the Black Isles 

To leave our souls together, though in Hell 
With lords and other ladies glorious. 

Ah, there with lovely vestals that were hurled 
From rock Tarpeian in the Roman world, 

Amestris, Hero, and the great fair queen, 

Semiramis, with king-kissed hair uncurled. 

There Phryne and the knight Hyperides. 

God knoweth they get no good days, now, nor ease. 

But how oh, better than dividing streets 
Thronged wide through golden Heaven is Hell to these! 

I think that Holy Mary must forgive 
All lovers who are parted and yet live. 

That our dear Lord some penance will remit 
To those amerced in love renunciative. 

For now our dream is over and our days 
Brought to the weary round of one who lays 
Unceasing prayers before the feet of Christ, 

Yet doubts the worth of that for which he prays. 

For, having parted, never, though we meet 
Hereafter, can we any more entreat 
The old unbroken innocence of love 
When no man else was brave nor woman sweet. 

There should be always something like a wraith 
Lurking along the shadowy halls of faith 

Till passion fled and left us stammering there 
With dreams gone strange and evil unto death. 

[ 52 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


Grown weary of long war and sick at heart, 

Man may forget a woman when, apart. 

She throweth no more a glamor over him 
And nearer beauty bumeth with newer art; 

Since he that loveth woman loveth much 
The bending of her body and the touch 
And all the delicate perfume of her hair 
And tenderness—he loveth even such. 

And hast thou loved me better? Whether it is 
My lips have gleaned a glory from thy kiss. 

Or whether thy great soul was matched with mine 
When God made all things first—I know not this. 

But think’st thou that, another’s concubine, 

I would break bread with Arthur or drain wine? 

But that thou’rt more than God’s fair face to me, 

I would play traitor to thy king and mine? 

When thou goest from me, having said farewell, 

Thou leavest me awhile in utter Hell! 

How shall I love again, 0 Lancelot, 

Who shall have sometime lain on asphodel? 

And if tonight there is no ghost, I ween. 

Nor any God or Devil to contravene 

The kisses of thy mouth across my throat. 

Nor any flesh of man to come between, 

Must hungry lips that only thine allay 
Cling to the empty breasts of yesterday 

[ 53 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

As poor thin babes’, in famine-stricken lands, 
To mothers fallen down dead beside the way? 

Is there no comfort more in gathering years 
Than hearts resigned and sodden ash of fears. 
Where once the wild fires ravaged all the soul 
In ever-lengthening intervals of tears? 

Must I from April’s coronals come to wear 
Dark rue for secret windings in my hair, 

And still forego thy splendor and thy fame? 

My punishment is more than I can bear! 

No more to sit among my maids and dream 
Where roses brush the breast of some still stream 
Like rubies hung upon a girl’s white throat. 
Forming thy blazonry in every gleam! 

No more to pluck from harpstrings tears of song 
Not made by bards for all the wan wild throng, 
But sweetly bitter couplets to an air 
Rung far from bells of silence all night long! 

No more, ah, nevermore! to watch for thee 
Riding from distant wars victoriously! 

The color of all my life is drab with death! 

My glory is departed! Comfort me! 

Lancelot: 

Lady and Love, as sails of some far ship. 

Blown to the west at sunset, rise and dip, 

[ 54 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


Crimson and golden over golden seas. 

Thy wild words burn and vanish at thy lip. 

Since thou wilt have it so, this is the end. 

That we shall meet no more, oh, God forfend! 

But love and all fair ways and words of love— 

With these we shall have naught to make or mend. 

Nay, 0 thou beauty of the world! what more 
Have we to tell each other? What old score 
Of kisses forfeit unto angers past? 

Or what last vows wrung from us at the door? 

Or ever his father gets him, man is dead. 

He speaks not neither hears what things are said. 

Singing with swords go battles up and down, 

But nothing recks he, then, of armies’ tread. 

And when the lancehead of some younger knight, 
Thrust over shield, hath ended sound and sight, 

Let war blaze ever through the king-starred earth. 

He shall not rise nor smitten be nor smite. 

The summer will come back with all the hills 
Rolling in green to meads of daffodils, 

And idle flocks gone grazing in the sun. 

And bird songs bickering over sylvan rills. 

The grape will burn to glory and the oak 
Revel in opals flaming down his cloak 

[ 55 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

While, gold within the autumn, gold with grain. 
The fields will rest in thin blue veils of smoke. 

Again high halls will roar with song, again 
There will be lights and feasting among men. 
Though winter ride the wind on wings of ice 
And wolves howl nearer from their foodless fen. 

But, silent in the sepulchre, no more 
Shall man rise up from sleeping on the floor 

Nor look upon the earth’s face flushed with spring 
Nor lift the long bars lightly from his door. 

Yet not with us hereafter as hath been 
With those whom beauty hath not entered in, 
Somehow my dust will drift where thine is laid. 
Somewhere my soul rejoin thee and re-win! 

We have been beautiful. Till time is done 
And all men cease from singing ’neath the sun, 

There shall be songs in hovel and in hall. 
Rhyming our meetings over, one by one. 

Not glory nor the mighty fames of kings 
Beat through the storms of time on tireless wings 
As love’s tales flown down centuries and far 
Out of dim days and proud, mysterious things. 

Death and the stars keep silence! But the wind 
Whispers forever of some isle or Ind 

Where once the years flung fever in their cup 
Whose names are magic, having sighed and sinned. 

[ 56 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


Wherefore I think that, childless as thou art. 
Thou shalt have yet some comfort when we part. 
Seeing that men will link us, name to name, 
Down all the deathless histories of the heart. 

It shall not be with us as it must be 
With lovers lost beyond some unknown sea, 

And no man saith the glory of their days. 

We shall not pass to silence. Comfort thee! 


[ 57 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


RENUNCIATION 

Roses are a dead delight 

When upon the wind they wave. 
Since I found them, red and white, 
Where they grew upon thy grave. 

Kisses are a dead desire. 

Strange as water after wine, 

Since I drained the icy fire 

From those pale dead lips of thine. 


[581 


The King of the Black Isles 


TO LEAVE IN MAY 

Goodby, and if you will, forget. 

There are so many men 
Another’s arm will comfort you 
When spring comes round again. 

And you will walk beneath the trees. 
Wondering then, as now. 

Why he that once has kissed your lips 
Will only kiss your brow. 

The worst of women is the thing 
Which fools have found the best— 
You will be true and helpless, you 
Will lie along his breast. 

For you can never understand 
And he can never say. 

In April it is time to love. 

But time to leave in May. 


[ 59 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


I WOULD REMEMBER CONSTANT THINGS 

The little broken bones of men. 

They ride on every wind that blows, 

With dust of Memphis whirled again 
And this year’s dust of last year’s rose; 

The little bitter tears of men. 

They are but drops in the salt sea. 

Lost forever beyond all ken 
Of flesh like you and me. 

And though from mountains worn away 
I mix the mortar for my house 
And build within the light of day 
For studious ease and long carouse, 

The rain shall beat above my head. 

The wind shall rattle my bolted door. 

And all the ghosts of all the dead 
Shall pace my fire-lit floor. 

Yet I will fashion greater Gods 
For Lares, now, than other men; 

I would forget how Sirius plods 
Through galaxies and back again; 

I would remember constant things. 

As sleep whereof no dreams affray. 

Before the wind on wandering wings 
Has blown my bones away. 


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The King of the Black Isles 


AFTERWARDS 

When you have leashed the hawk desire 
By jess and varvel. 

You will sit. 

Silent, heside your daughter’s fire 
And she will marvel. 

While you knit. 

That one there was who loved to rhyme 
Your face with all he dreamed or said— 

When you are old and tired of time 
And I am dead. 

Ah, Love, the days are overfleet 
Before December, 

Though we spend 

Not all the summer’s gold, and. Sweet, 
Though we remember 
Till the end. 

There shall be time to chide desire 

When all our passionate prayers are said 

And you are old beside the fire 
And I am dead. 


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The King of the Black Isles 


CHANSONETTE D’AMOUR 

0 blossoms white on apple boughs, 
And flame of love! 

O burdens of bent apple boughs. 
And fruits of love! 

Love cometh like a border thief. 
Nor beareth part in any grief. 

And bright with all desire and brief 
The life of love. 

0 grapes that grow on purpled hills. 
And wine of love! 

O withered vines on winter’s hills. 
And lees of love! 

Love hath his day of troubled breath 
And, passing, utterly perisheth. 

And bitterer than all other death 
The death of love. 


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The King of the Black Isles 


MOOD 

I awake and hear the rain 

On the sounding cells of night, 
Like a threnody of pain 
For dead delight. 

Shall I wake and turn again 
To that song above my head? 
Shall I ever hear the rain 
When I am dead? 


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The King of the Black Isles 


A LAMENT 

Over the lake my lad has gone, 

Over the lake at the dawn of day. 

And the waves they follow and fall and fawn 
And the children chatter, as children may, 
And I sit and think, as the sun goes down 
In the mists of Michigan’s western sea, 

For what of the dreams he takes to town? 

And what of the dreams he leaves with me? 

Over the lake my lad has gone 

As the sun must go at the close of day. 

And the waves they tumble and roll and fawn 
And the elders gossip as elders may, 

And I sit thinking, as light by light 

The windows look to the western sea— 

Dear God, be good to my lad tonight! 

And oh, be merciful unto me! 


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The King of the Black Isles 


WHALER’S CHANTEY 

We’ve said goodby to our dearies. 

We’ve laid tobaccy in store. 

We’re startin’ a three-year whalin’ cruise 
From Hell to Singapore; 

The wind is over the quarter, 

The banks are under our lee— 

Heave—0! Tail onto a sheet! 

We’re standin’ out to sea! 

Her fo’c’s’le’s painted with whitewash. 

Her hold is pumped out dry, 

There’s empty barrels atween decks. 

An’ the boats are nested high; 

There’s mebbe a thousan’ fish to catch 
An’ a lump of ambergree— 

An’ the ol’ tub carries a bone in her teeth 
A-snorin’ down to sea! 

There’s gals a-plenty in Boston 
Will moor you if they can, 

But seldom a gal can ride it out 
With a rovin’ sailor-man. 

Oh, the wind is over the quarter. 

The hanks are under our lee— 

Heave—0! Tail onto a sheet! 

We’re standin’ out to sea! 


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The King of the Black Isles 


WILD 

When I was young and handsome 
A lady loved me well, 

And whether it was wise to go 
Who is there to tell? 

But soon I rose and left her 
And looked in other eyes. 

For liberty is more than faith 
And beauty more than lies. 

When I was young and handsome 
(And that was long ago), 

I might have been a richer man, 
One lady loved me so; 

But I have marched with legions 
And sailed the seas in ships. 

For life is more than husbandry 
And love than woman’s lips. 


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WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN 

Daughter of Eve, daughter of Eve, 

Why do you linger and languish and grieve? 
Beauty is yours, even beauty to weave 
Chains for the Son of the Morning. 

Nay , there is someone who follows me not 
Gone far away from this wearisome spot , 
Someone who saw me and turned and forgot , 
Wherefore I weep in the morning. 

Daughter of Eve, daughter of Eve, 

Lo, he returns to you, he that would leave. 

See how he comes with his heart on his sleeve. 
Cleaving the mists of the morning. 

Nay , I had dreamed 9 t was his pleasure and plot 
To force me to follow him—why did he not ?— 
With Eden behind us and Eden forgot , 

Into the gold of the morning. 


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BEAUTY 

O Beauty, thou Goddess Immortal, 

There is none other like to thee, none! 

We grave many names on thy portal. 

But the gold is not fallen from one. 

Thou art served and the flame of thine altars 
Fed full by the king and the clod 

And a priest of thy word never palters, 
Unknowable God! 

Thou goest in robes of the morning 
A Light and a Mystery, thou. 

The galaxy gleams for adorning 
The locks of thine infinite brow. 

Man lives not who does not adore thee. 
Whether Jupiter, Jesus or Thor 

Be the image he bows to before thee. 

Serene Avatar! 

Thou hast cloven the mountains in sunder 
And crowned them with chrysolite crowns; 

Thou ringest the bells of the thunder; 

The seas are flung white at thy frowns; 

Thou hast not to do with our seeming 
From the womb to the wave or the sod. 

But alone of thy grace is our dreaming. 
Invisible God! 

For love of thee men are begotten 
Who brand their begetting as sin. 


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But these thou hast lost and forgotten, 

To thy porches they shall not go in; 

They shall wander in chaos forever. 

They shall bitterly pray for thy ruth, 

O just and inflexible Giver 
Of glimpses of truth! 

Thy votaries, pale as from poring 
Over mysteries wrought in thy name, 

Come forth of thy temples, adoring, 

With fingers and lips dropping flame. 

Beaten down by the light of thy station, 
Overawed by thine axes and rods, 

We rise but to pour thee libation, 

O Goddess of Gods! 

From sistrum and lyre thou has shaken 
The sounds that were gendered in thee, 

All the laughter of nymphs overtaken, 

All the thunder that sings in the sea. 

We have caught from the fire of thy singing 
Such embers of passion as flame 
Through the last constellations where, winging, 
Young Gods bear thy name. 

Out of darkness thou givest to shame us 
Dim fabrics and delicate things 
That were woven in centuries famous 
For glory of delicate kings, 

Carved vessels of gold and all manner 
Of silver wrung virgin from fire, 


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The King of the Black Isles 

And velariums, banner on banner 
In purple of Tyre. 

Almost of thy might thou persuadest 
The triumph from tombs and the sting 
From death, seeing thou never fadest. 

But risest, O Phoenix! in spring. 

Almost thou wilt have us remember 

The old legends of earth and the dream 
That after the flame and the ember 
The soul is supreme. 

And we that have lain upon roses 
And drunk of the lethe of love, 

What more can we ask, as life closes. 

Of Fates underneath or above? 

What more than soft arms and bright bosoms 
Whereon to grow sated and sleep 
With a wreath on the brows of such hlossoms 
As Naiads may reap? 

For most thou hast made of thine image 
In waters that ceaselessly roll 
From ages forgot to that dim age 
When man shall at last be a soul. 

Oh, most thou hast left us reflected. 

Of all we can picture of thee. 

In a brothel, a hell unsuspected- 

The depths of the sea. 

Yea, scented with summer and spices 
That never have trembled with cold. 


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The King of the Black Isles 


Thou, Beauty, hast wrought thy devices 
On islands and inlands of gold 

Where, deep over decks that were gory 
For woman or gem or doubloon, 

The waves to the winds tell a story. 

The winds to the moon. 

What ghosts of great ships from far places. 
Weighed down with rich burdens of bales! 

What dreams and ambitions! What faces 
Of virgins denuded of veils! 

What captives more lovely than flowers 
Lie still under seaweed and sea! 

What lips that have kissed in what bowers! 

What fruits of the tree! 

Are they gone, are they vanished forever? 

Are their passions all quenched in the brine? 

Must they sleep in a palace and never 
Learn aught of those walls berylline? 

Dim grottoes and strewn-over niches 
With amber and opal and pearl- 

Is there none to rejoice in those riches, 

No gallant or girl? 

Who knows but in caverns of coral. 

Lit round by a lamp not of fire. 

They speak in a language not oral 
And love without flesh for desire? 

We walk in a world where but cant is 
And measure the motions of Mars- 

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The King of the Black Isles 

Who knows but the folk of Atlantis 
Forgive us our stars? 

For out of our hearing and vision 

Lie more than our senses can tell- 

Fair worlds too minute for division 
And nebulae deeper than Hell. 

Thou hast not to do with our seeming 
From the womb to the wave or the sod. 
But alone of thy grace is our dreaming, 
Invisible God! 

Oh, then, let the eyes of thy lovers 
Grow misty with dreams of thy face 
Till the day when thy mercy discovers 
Thy veiled and intolerable grace! 

Till the day when the last of the nations, 
From altars of idols bowed down. 

Shall arise and with chanted libations 
Hail thee and thy crown! 


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The King of the Black Isles 


FOR LOVE IS OF THE VALLEY 

I wonder who the woman was 
That loved him there in Galilee 
Or ever he put off the garb 
Of carpentry. 

And went she up to Golgotha? 

She had but little ease, I ween, 
For leave to kiss his hands and feet 
With Magdalene. 

Oh, better feed the flame of love 
In any sober shepherd lad 
Than wither at the blazing lips 
Of one called mad. 


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The King of the Black Isles 


CHANSON DE MYSTERE 

They say heard melodies are sweet, 

But those unheard are sweeter far; 

And two may dream and never meet 
Beneath one star. 

And two may live their whole lives through, 
Wanton with joy for roses blown, 

Who might have gleaned but weeds and rue 
Had they but known. 

So little comes upon the sight 

When pent by day in golden bars. 

But oh, the vistas of the night 
Beyond the stars! 


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Sonnets 


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The King of the Black Isles 


SONNETS OF A MINNESINGER 

I 

I will have done with following Beauty’s face. 

Who has no heart of tenderness for me, 

But walks alone, mysterious as the sea, 

Luring me always from my proper place; 

I will have done with all her endless grace. 

Since I may not thus follow endlessly. 

For I have only seen what all men see 
Who cheat death proudly for a little space. 

It is as if one, daring before dawn 

The keep of some old castle, thinks to find 

Something of triumph, having left behind 

Dark muttering halls where nameless ghosts have trod. 

But suddenly through the roof looks out upon 

The impregnable bright battlements of God. 

II 

When my heart breaks at last with beauty of sound 
Gone always, like some elfin violin, 

Beyond full hearing, weird and sweet and thin 
And never to be caught up and never found, 

Oh, bury me then so deep down in the ground 
That I shall hear no music more of sin 
Or burning of red clouds when dawns begin 
Or ever again hear faint, far bugles wound. 

And bury me where the wind has all forgot 
To whisper of still moons at midnight, where 

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No breeze may wanton through a woman’s hair. 
And surely where no ribald gales conspire 
To boast how sails crept home to Camelot 
And purple sails bore boldly forth from Tyre. 

III 

If sonnets and if songs were made for this— 

To burn upon love’s altars and to stay. 

Even for the passing of an autumn day. 
Oblivion from the memory of a kiss, 

They had been dumb beneath the Acropolis 
And we had never heard one roundelay 

Of Ermengarde’s or Borgia’s beauty-nay. 

Nor what wild passion flamed in Tomyris. 

But one who sits in silence and apart, 

Maddened with bitter melodies and sweet, 

Shall rise and wander singing through the street. 
Heedless of hindrance in the mocking throngs, 
And pluck the broken lutestrings of his heart 
For sonnets and for little sounding songs. 

IV 

A strange thing happened only yesterday; 

For when I saw you walking in the sun 
I half forgot you were a skeleton, 

So gracefully I marked you swing and sway. 
And, somehow gloriously, were veiled away 
The barren bones and you appeared as one 
Carved out of flame or as a spirit spun 
On God’s own loom to make an angel gay. 

Ah, well, it was a trick of thought, a jest 


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The King of the Black Isles 

Played by the beast within me which knows not 
That all its days, since ever ’twas begot, 

Bulk not so large as one drop in the sea, 

But, looking on the movement of your breast. 

Sings as the Sons of God might-passionately. 

V 

Not with wild words nor yet with wilder tears 
Can we two kiss and part, for we have taken 
Fame for our God and finally have forsaken 
Love and all faiths of love and all love’s fears. 

Oh, we of the singing lips, we have stopped our ears 
And left forever the hearth-side; we are shaken 
Far too deep down with dawn winds to awaken 
And go about the business of love’s years. 

Yet for a bright, brief while let us pretend 
That our two hearts hold passion overmuch, 

Sweet to the taste and sweeter to the touch 
And flown with madness and all mirth whereof 
The great Gods yield a little, before the end. 

For the sound and glory and ruffling drums of love. 

VI 

When you sit naked at your looking-glass, 

Having combed hair, with kisses in your eyes. 

Where the gold light falls intimately and lies 
Tingeing your limbs to color of bright brass, 

And when you see how silken movements pass 
Through slender breasts and delicate flesh of thighs, 
And being proud for beauty and most wise 
In all love’s ways and wizardries-alas!- 

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The King of the Black Isles 


I wonder do you sometimes muse tbe while 
And feel a sudden tenderness for men 
Denied the solace of your body then 
When their lips left you passionless and cool, 

Or do you watch but your own grace and smile 
As once Narcissus down a sylvan pool? 

VII 

Some day, when time has left you calm and wise 
To look at last within your glass and say 
“Can it be true that sober men and gay 
Loved this face, once, and kissed these weary eyes? 
That there was ever aught in the replies 
These old and writhen lips could once betray 
To heal and hurt the passion of a day? 

Or in cold hands the touch that pacifies?”— 
Will you remember, being heartsick, then, 

That, woven in some little song of mine, 

Your name for warp made all the woof’s design 
Brilliant and beautiful and like to shed 
Something of pride hereafter among men? 

Will you remember and be comforted? 

VIII 

When you are come to three-score years and ten, 
If, nodding in your chair, you dream on me 
And wake to smile a little, wearily. 

Thinking “For he was like as other men,” 

I shall have been long dead, long buried, then 
(Haply beside some ever-sounding sea). 

But should you muse and sigh regretfully 


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“He came and kissed and never came again”— 

Then think how, on the very lips of love. 

The serpents’ tongues we seek to kiss away 
Grow ever sharp and deadlier, day by day. 

Even as hearts grow older, aye, and old; 

And think how better is the loss thereof 
Than tenderness turned bitter and touch cold. 

IX 

Last year I loved a lady, oh, as fair 
As ever queen that men have bled to kiss, 

And now my whole heart’s chalice, poured with bliss, 
Brims in the fragrance of your hands and hair. 

I cannot dream of loving otherwhere 
Than your soft indolence of beauty is— 

Yet all the dead past haunts me, whispering this: 
“Next year thou shalt remember, but not care.” 

I think there is no bitterer wine to sup 
Than when man’s idols have been tumbled down 
He needs must grave new images and crown 
New Gods in ancient temples. Oh, as gall 
And utter wormwood in a golden cup. 

Not whom we love, but love, is all in all. 

X 

You that have mystery, you that have dark hair, 
Smooth arms to kiss and small breasts and long hips, 
You that delight, with sensitive fingertips, 

To touch warm gold and soft warm flesh and fair, 

0 you of the bitter eyes and the tired air 
Of Sappho singing low through sobbing lips 

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Bruised for being crushed all night by one who sips 

Delectably rich wines of pleasure there- 

Although you are a singer and care less 
For any man or me or any thing 
Than only that God give you days to sing 
The banners in your blood out, passionately. 

Sometimes desire shall lend you tenderness, 

Deep in the night when you remember me. 

XI 

Yet if wise men smile down at you and say 
“Ah, well, but you are young and some few years 
Will etch your face with acid of such tears 
As only age can wholly dry away,” 

Let not these ancients rob you of your day. 

Who are themselves half mad with grisly fears 
Of one that hath not eyes nor nose nor ears 
Nor any soft warm fingers fit for play. 

The old are bitter for lost youth; the old 
Shiver in rags of worn philosophies; 

They are dying from life; the very words of these 
Smack of dead bones and blasted ecstasy. 

But 0 thou Youth of the roses and the gold. 

Ride hard, love long, drink deep, live dangerously! 

XII 

You beauty, oh, you beauty! Paint your eyes 
And paint your cheeks and lips and bring desire 
Leaping along my veins to be the sire 
Of little death’s-heads like us in some wise. 

Fool me with kisses and with enterprise 


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The King of the Black Isles 

Delude me till I tremble like a wire 
Plucked by a poet’s fingers at a lyre 
Deep among roses when the winter dies. 

Your flesh is thinner than a comet’s tail; 

Your bones alone are matter; and I would 
There were more color in your fevered blood 
To hide the empty arches of your hips. 

Ah, Love, why must you be so always pale? 

Paint and yet paint your eyes and cheeks and lips! 

XIII 

Not to great music nor from lips ablaze 
With passion of singing songs flown out like fire. 
These verses, fashioned to a broken lyre 
In somber cities and forgotten ways. 

Have little of April’s madness or of May’s 
And little of June’s intolerable desire. 

They do not ache with August nor suspire 
In purple and amber wrung from autumn days. 

I am no singer such as others are 

Whose throats are gold bells pealing over the land; 

They are the bards of nations and they stand 

In kings’ halls, clothed in velvet and in vair; 

While I but murmur, at a casement bar, 

Idylls and threnes, because your face is fair. 

XIV 

If we had met and parted in such wise 
As tall ships meet and part upon the sea— 

Speak word of ports and pass irrevocably, 

Each to its haven under different skies— 


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The King of the Black Isles 

If, with calm hands and eyes on radiant eyes. 

With laughing lips and hearts from anguish free, 

We two had kissed and parted joyously. 

Turning with never tears away, nor sighs— 

Ah, Love, I had remembered all my days, 

And it had been, with all life overpassed, 

Had heard you singing somewhere at the last, 

Serene beyond the Pleiads, where the shore 
Beats to a paean wrung from lonely ways: 

“Whom the Gods join are sealed forevermore!” 

XV 

Since all love’s ways and all love’s wounds are sweet 
And there’s not any bitterness in love. 

Let us forget the utter end thereof, 

Trodden down swiftly by remorseless feet, 

And let us stand with arms flung wide to greet 
The broken body of the dying dove 
With not more wisdom than we gaze above 
And dream God reigns forever. Ah, repeat 
No more the bitter songs that I have made 
Nor more the sounding sonnets. If to us 
This ringing day has entered glorious, 

Why should we dread the sunset? Shall the bars 
Of night be closer or more firmly stayed? 

Dawn is a veil drawn down to hide the stars. 

XVI 

I have come home, at last, I have come home. 

Weary of wandering idly among men. 

And I will nevermore go forth again. 


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The King of the Black Isles 

Since all roads lead by devious ways to Rome. 
Not the gray turret nor the dreaming dome 
Nor the long hall that rang with music, then. 
Has thrilled my heart to ecstasy as when 
I have come home, my Love, I have come home. 
Your hands are like pale roses in the dusk 
And roses like the passion of your hands; 

I have not learned, in any of earth’s lands, 

A pillow of such comfort as your breast; 

Nor ever, under winds blown deep with musk. 
Said to my soul: “Be still and take thy rest!” 


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The King of the Black Isles 


BORGIA 

No more the furious revels and no more 
The dangerous trysts and secret nights of love 
Nor any more forever the songs whereof 
The halls of Rome were amorous of yore. 

Now is that palace unto ruin given o’er. 

The walls grown loathsome with soft things that move. 

And owls have refuge in the roofs above 

And asps and adders and scorpions on the floor. 

I dreamed of thee again, last night, and stood 
Against the curtains of thy tumbled bed. 

Seeing the fallen hair about thine head 
And all the broken beauty that was thine, 

And seeing upon thy mouth a trace of blood 
And under thee crushed roses and spilt wine. 


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The King of the Black Isles 


NAPOLEON 

Thy name is bright with sabers and thy name 
Is big with guns; magnificent and stern 
The somber eagles brood above thine urn 
Between the inoldering standards’ dusty flame; 

And still across the empires men acclaim 
The splendor of thy destiny and turn 
Still to thy terrible battle fires that burn 
In distant, billowing holocausts of fame. 

0 thou proud Lucifer, thou Morning Star, 

Thou brilliant, cold, white glory in the West, 

The heart’s drums thunder, breaking in the breast. 
For muttering o’er thy triumphs, one by one. 

As if again were bugles blown for war 
Through streets gone brave with banners in the sun! 


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The King of the Black Isles 


TO A POET DYING YOUNG 

You came and there was music, for your hands 
Swept suddenly from dusty, slumbering strings 
A rapture as of half-remembered things, 

A glory of dim days and ancient lands, 

And something valiant as of broken brands, 
And clean and swift as of a lark that sings 
Joyously under heaven on young wings, 

And something sad, too, as of drifted sands. 
You came and there was music. And for us 
There never shall be throbbing viols again 
Without the sense of something gone from men. 
Something of beauty vanished from the hill 
Whereon you walked a brief while glorious. 
The rest is silence. But the stars are still! 


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The King of the Black Isles 


VIKINGS 

So all day long they rowed, and with a song 
Wilder than wings of gulls, Lief Ericson 
Stood to the tiller, calling, one by one 
Great praise on Gods and heroes; all night long 
Bellowed the waves with thunder; bold and strong 
The thews of Thor bore to the sunken sun. 

Heavy in hammered gold, until they won 

Through Ymir’s blood and winds that brawl and throng. 

Ha! Not from these the darkness of the deep 

Struck terror, nor the tempest; not from these 

The Spaniard’s prayer for sweet familiar seas. 

Blown warm with summer scents, wherein to lave. 

But only, after labor, the sad sleep 

And the bright name and glory of the brave. 


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The King of the Black Isles 


IN MEMORIAM 

I would arise now, since none other sings 
The beauty and the glory that are gone, 

I would arise and utter a song, drawn 
Forth of long brooding over muted strings. 

For late I dreamed one came on splendid wings. 
Between the dusks of sunset and of dawn, 
Wherefrom a feather brushed my lips upon, 
Sealing them unto silence for base things. 

And clear and sweet as one great chord vibrates 
Beyond its full concordances of sound, 

There rang a voice in all the air around, 
Bell-toned, like surf upon reverberant shores. 
Crying: “Lift up, lift up your heads, O Gates, 

Be ye lift up, ye everlasting Doors!” 


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The King of the Black Isles 


OLD MAID 

God knows how many nights upon her bed 
She dreamed another Latmus, while the hot 
Sweet winds of summer in her garden-plot 
Kissed away tears from roses comforted. 

God knows what flaming verses she has read 
To keep vicarious trysts with Lancelot, 
Broken with brooding over loves forgot 
And lawless revels of the pagan dead. 

But she has conquered all her blood’s desire. 
Cheated her soul of sin as misers cheat. 

And now she pauses on proud, hesitant feet 
At lighted rooms where men and women mix, 
With amorous eyes fearful of unknown fire— 
A naked nun clasping the crucifix! 


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The King of the Black Isles 


THE JEST 

Phaon, when Aphrodite made you over. 

Gave you bright youth and beauty and dark hair 
And touched your flesh and left it firm and fair 
To eat thick honey and lie all day in clover. 

She fetched from Heaven a wondrous cloak to cover 
Your shoulders broad with boat labor, and there 
Robed you in princely raiment, made you heir 
To lips of her who had been Athis’ lover. 

All these good gifts the Goddess gave you, Phaon, 
But, as I think, she must have left you blind, 
Seeing that you walk in Lesbian ways nor find 
Those little fragrant foot-prints on the shore. 
Gods! What a sorry jest was this to play on 
One who had else been dead forevermore! 


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The King of the Black Isles 


TO OMAR KHAYYAM 

Persian! I fill with red, forbidden wine 
This cup grown dusty from long abstinence. 

And pledge that leisure when, for recompense. 

On some green garden’s bank I shall recline. 

Listing your praise of beauty and the vine 

And scorn of little men’s intelligence 

And pity of it and of that insolence 

Which must have right and wrong in things divine. 

For there are many blown so big with pride 
They think they wear God’s likeness! And they think 
God cares a single cent though all men drink 
To drown a little sorrow from their days! 

Who are but vermin dreaming they shall ride 
On deathless wings through infinite times and ways! 


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The King of the Black Islet 


BOSWORTH FIELD 

The sound of swords, the shock of broken shields 
Rang in a fury of war that has been here 
Where now the notes of noon serene and clear. 

Call home the tillers of these little fields. 

Here raged Plantagenet, like a king that wields 
Doom of an ax foredoomed before the spear 
Of some king chosen by the Gods to fear 
Death nor defeat nor any flesh that yields. 

Almost again I see the dust clouds there. 
Thronged on a wind above their heavy horse. 
Smell the bright carnage reddening round his corse 
Who fell forever with the fallen Rose 
And hear again that turbulent music where. 
Thundered of drums, the Tudor’s triumph goes. 


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Forms of France 


[ 95 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

BALLADE OF MUTABILITY 

Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair, 
Like as one loved of old by Solomon; 

Thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks; thy hair 
Is pleasant as a stream from Lebanon; 

Sweeter than calamus and cinnamon 

Thy mouth; thy breast is whiter than white flame; 

But-yet a day!-thy beauty shall be done 

And time shall be when thou art but a name. 

And wilt thou seek out Lesbos, then, and there 
Rear up a tower of music toward the sun, 

Where all day long run purple seas and where 
The nights are nard for memories halcyon? 

Where, Sappho, thy pure songs, from passion spun. 
Must break men’s hearts, but Lesbian waves proclaim 
Thy tower shall fall, yea, even as Babylon, 

And time shall be when thou art but a name. 

All hail, victorious Soldier, hail! The blare 
Of brazen bugles vaunting battles won. 

The pageantry, the revelry, the prayer 
In all the pomps of glory’s orison. 

And echoes wild of war, as gun on gun 
Thunders thy welcome and thy sounding fame— 

“ Remember thou art mortal,” whispers one, 

“ And time shall be when thou art but a name! ” 
l’envoi 

Prince, there is none more loved of honor, none; 

Thy deeds are blazoned which renown shall claim; 

But Caesar dares no more the Rubicon, 

And time shall be when thou art but a name. 

[96] 


The King of the Black Isles 


BALLADE OF TWO LADIES 

Ah, Circe, in your golden isle 
Above the golden Grecian sea, 

I learned the marvel of your smile. 
Your beauty broke the heart of me. 
Sweet were your eyes with mystery 
And your white body sweet to kiss. 
Alas, that we must parted be! . . . 

(I wonder where Calypso is.) 

Enchantress! Though the world revile 
Your acts, your arts, your perfidy. 
Could I condemn or blame you while 
Your beauty broke the heart of me? 
Fair hair and blown that wantonly 
The sea-wind’s fingers twined in his 
Far from the good Penelope . . . 

(I wonder where Calypso is.) 

Your love has mile on weary mile 
Beguiled my toil with witchery. 

Your songs my day-dreams yet beguile, 
Your beauty broke the heart of me. 

No more forever, now, shall we. 

We two, regain those hours of bliss 
In life nor all eternity! . . . 

(I wonder where Calypso is.) 

l’envoi 

When age her weird of years shall dree, 
Remember, oh, remember this: 

Your beauty broke the heart of me. . . 
(I wonder where Calypso is.) 


[ 97 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

BALLADE IN TIME OF THE GREAT WAR 

Reign of ruin! Who rides by night 
Over the roads and past the weirs? 

Looms a troop in the lurid light. 

Rings a cry on the startled ears, 

Hoof-beats volley among the meers, 

The winds rush down and the dead leaves dance— 
Rapiers, rapiers! Musketeers 
Ride again in the land of France! 

Boots and saddles! And bold and bright 
Youth goes galloping. Youth that jeers 
Death and the Dust in pride of might— 

War is ever the word it hears; 

Peace is ever the pact it fears 

When roll the drums of the foe’s advance. 

Athos, Porthos, the Musketeers 
Ride again in the land of France! 

Thrust and parry and press the fight! 

What of the heroes famed of years? 

Lo, they fly with the eagle’s flight 

When France has need of them—France in tears! 

Lo, they laugh at the foreign spears 

And sing with the song of guns! Perchance 

D’Artagnan and the Musketeers 

Ride again in the land of France! 

l’envoi 

Stirrup-cups for the cavaliers, 

And the old oath over of old romance— 

“One for all!”—and the Musketeers 
Ride again in the land of France! 

[98] 


The King of the Black Isles 


PARIS—1456 

Grim winter stars and goblin moons 
Peep through their ragged winding sheet 
And many a shadow sweeps and swoons 
As Paris dreams and gray wolves meet; 

The watch goes by on crunching feet 
To halt within yon tavern’s light 
In envy of its ease and heat— 

Villon is drinking deep tonight. 

Fair Isabeau beside him croons 
A love ballade of haunting beat; 

The Abbess broods on yestemoons 

When sparrows quarreled among the wheat; 

And now a catch roars out to greet 

New-beaded stoups or put to flight 

The wail of night winds hagged with sleet— 

Villon is drinking deep tonight. 

Poor beggar of small royal boons. 

Cut-purse and drabber, dicer, cheat. 

Fellow to sworders, sots, buffoons, 

Hunted anon for gallows-meat. 

Yet singer of high songs and sweet. 

Tender of one grown old and white. 

And sooth-sayer for stew and street— 

Villon is drinking deep tonight. 

l’envoi 

My lords and gentlemen, we eat. 

Toss pots and part from sound and sight. 

I wonder in what ingle-seat 
Villon is drinking deep tonight! 


[ 99 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


BALLADE OF LADIES OF TIMES GONE BY 

(Being yet another translation of Villon*s “Ballade des Dames du 
Temps Jadis**) 

Tell me now in what land can be 
Flora the Roman? Where remain 
Fair Hipparchia’s charms and she, 

Thais, in beauty so germane? 

Echo, calling afar, in vain. 

Over the rivers and marshes wan, 

Lovelier, once, than girls profane? 

But where are the snows of last year gone? 

Where’s Heloise, that leam’d lady. 

For whom was gelded—priestly gain!— 

Pierre Esbaillart, at Saint Denis? 

For love he bore such burden of pain. 

And where is the queen who did ordain 
And give command that Buridan 
Be sewed in a sack and flung to Seine? 

But where are the snows of last year gone? 

Queen Blanche, white as a white lily. 

Who sang in a voice of siren strain; 

Berthe Gros-pied, Beatrix, Aliys, 

And Haremburges who ruled in Maine; 

And that good Jeanne, maid of Lorraine, 


[ 100 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


Burned by the English at Rouen— 

Where are they. Virginal Suzerain? 

But where are the snows of last year gone? 

l’envoi 

Prince, to ask of this week abstain, 

Nor seek to learn of this year anon. 

Since will remain the one refrain— 

But where are the snows of last year gone? 


[ 101 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

BALLADE OF LOST ILLUSION 

I cannot sing of good Gods, but of great; 

Nor think your faiths are stronger than your fears 
Nor say the heron seeks no other mate, 

Forgetting and forgot by yesteryear’s; 

Nor shall I hold that honor more endears 
The recreant debtor of his rightful debt; 

Nor yet deny, for any lover’s ears, 

They never shall forgive whose lips have met. 

They see and marvel and they name it—fate; 
Heart calls to heart across the barriers; 

With fumbling fingers they unbar the gate; 

They swear vain vows which Heaven never hears. 
What reck they now of pillows wet with tears? 
Pulses are thunder and flesh flame! And yet 
A little knavish whisper flouts and fleers: 

They never shall forgive whose lips have met. 

For all love’s days and nights are profligate, 

And all love’s ways are wanton till death nears; 
And the lone heir of dead desire is hate. 

Beggared with kisses, bitter with arrears; 

And the soul smarts of little, crafty jeers 
And when appears the shadow of regret 
And wisdom, wan with many griefs, appears. 

They never shall forgive whose lips have met. 
l’envoi 

Princess and all ye heavy-handed peers. 

Learn now this rhyme and nevermore forget— 

For life’s a wind and love a vane that veers— 

They never shall forgive whose lips have met. 

[ 102 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


RONDEL 

Death is only a long forgetting 
After the sundown, hidden away 
In a cool dark bed at the end of day. 

While the Gods keep watch and the stars are setting. 

Why should we fear to have done with fretting 
At lust and labor and hate and play? 

Death is only a long forgetting 
After the sundown, hidden away. 

None of us lives without regretting 
The toil we gave for a pauper’s pay; 

And we shall be fain at last to say. 

What of the weary years and sweating: 

Death is only a long forgetting. 


[ 103 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


RONDEAU OF REST 

Under the hills they dream how Hector bled. 

The great old Gods; nor dream that beauty fled 
Out of the earth and hid upon a star 
When Athens ruled no longer. . . . Who shall mar 
The changeless, fond illusions of the dead? 

And there the gnomes keep fires aglow that shed 
A glory on their gold and rubies red . . . 

Who knows what treasures they have hoarded far 
Under the hills? 

And you and I, when all our prayers are said 
And we have crept—oh, wearily!—to bed. 

Let us forget the laboring world and bar 
Our sleep against the sound of things that are 
And sleep and dream of happier things instead, 

Under the hills. 


[ 104 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


SESTINA OF ONE FACE FAIR 

I said once in my heart, “Now it is May 
I will put by all bitterness and care 

And live a brief while joyously and say 
Mad words of beauty unadorned and bare 

That God shall learn how, even for a day, 

I, too, was young and found my love’s face fair.” 

And seeing how the world was free and fair, 

I went along its roads, as free men may, 

Singing mad songs, and all my singing bare 
Such praise of God as only youth can say; 

And all my heart was happy without care, 

So much my love’s face moved me in that day. 

There was a little pool half burned in day, 

Half hidden in deep shadows, and it was fair 

With all wild iris and green leaves of May, 

Wherein young girls washed their bright bodies bare; 

But while I thought for some sweet word to say. 

There came upon me a great pain of care. 

For how can man love beauty and yet care 
For one face only more than for a day? 

When all God’s world is free and all maids fair 
To us who live not well but as we may. 

Wherefore we lie along our beds and bare 
Our hearts to bitterness we may not say. 


[ 105 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 

But there is one word I beg leave to say, 

Who love not heavy hearts nor any care: 

Let God be thanked for madness and for May 
And for a face that is a brief while fair. 

Or ever we learn, in some bright hour of day. 

What bitterness there is in love laid bare. 

So let it be that when the world is bare 
And we that live can find no heart to say 
Great words of God and find no heart to care 

For song, who once went singing through the day. 
Yet in some wise there shall be one face fair 
Beyond all dreams we made as all men may. 

Have, then, no care for aught beyond your day. 

Though all men say that age is bald and bare. 

Life may be fair for one face loved in May. 


[ 106 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


RIME-ROYAL 

God knows there is no comfort in sad songs 
Nor any ease in bitter songs made sweet 
With high, wild music of the wind that throngs 
Above the thronging walkers in the street 
Where men meet men and men and women meet. 
Speak of light loves and part and sigh and say: 
“Ah, well, ’twill serve to while the hours away!” 

For life has many moods and all moods tire 
Or ever the cup be drained unto the lees: 
Pleasure and song and triumph and desire 
And all safe comfort and all wonted ease. 

And if a man sit brooding over these. 

Shall he not hold, of each that bore its day: 
“This, too, hath served to while the hours away”? 

And if a man sit brooding over grief. 

Now, surely, at the last he shall confess 
(Remembering how that every pain was brief. 
Midmost the limbo of life’s barrenness. 

And how, for every lip that he would press, 
There lingered yet some savor of decay) — 

“All sorrow served to while the hours away.” 

All beauty has some little dole of death. 

All death some hope of beauty hidden there 


[1071 


The King of the Black Isles 

(Howbeit before the laden west wind’s breath 
Are blown dead bones that moved in men whilere), 
Wherefore we living die not of despair. 

But turn and seek such beauty as we may. 

Thinking thereof to while the hours away. 

So let me sing what songs are in my heart 
Before my heart’s few singing days are done. 

And pardon me if what I can of art 
Sound only threnes and dirges ’neath the sun. 

Who have but watched how all Earth’s rivers run 
Into a sea that is not filled for aye— 

So must I choose to while the hours away. 

And, also, now, if any man will read 
And muse how there is beauty in sad lays 
Beyond all boast of beauty that may breed 
In measures made to earn the common praise. 

Let me take heart for sadness of my days 
And to whatever Gods will hearken, pray 
My songs may serve to while some hours away. 


[1081 


The King of the Black Isles 


In Quantity 


1109] 


The King of the Black Isles 


HENDECASYLLABICS 

All the graves of the Goths the wild world over 
Speak for glory and war and love of woman; 

All the runes of the Goths and all their folk-lore. 
Woven ever with deeds of Thor and Odin, 

Echo, gloomy and stern, full of a moaning 
Wind in primitive forests, full of thunder 
Rolling over stark hills, and boom of ocean 
Breaking, older than pain, on broken beaches. 

Sad and sodden with drink they watched the winter 
Pass and heard in the night the hard wolf-howling. 
Saying deep to their hearts, “Lo, as the sparrow 
Flitteth into a hall and through the torch-light. 
Flying but for a moment under rafters, 

Then departeth anon out to the darkness. 

So the life of a man cometh we know not 
Whence, and like as a bird, goeth forever.” 

These were berserkers wild in battle, vikings 
Ruddy-bearded and bold, blue-eyed and handsome. 
Singing songs in the teeth of northern tempests, 
Savage, passionate, pagan, meet for sagas. 

All the graves of the Goths the wild world over 
Speak for glory and war and love of woman. 


[HO] 


The King of the Black Isles 
SAPPHICS 

Slowly dawn came, waking the sleeping Goddess, 

Kissing open, even with lips of roses. 

Eyes that trembled, half in the dream that held her 

Yet with Adonis. 

Then the young loves harnessed the doves, the wild-wing 
Doves immortal, bound them with pearl and amber, 
Making day ring loud for a sound of movement 

Sweeter than bird-song. 
Out of tired lips fluttered a sigh for waking, 

Yet with fingers fitting the purple sandals. 

All her bright breast, shaken with stormy kisses, 

Flashed in the morning. 

Then in some wise, like as a mist of April 
Passes rainless over the rain-wet meadows. 

Borne in wrought gold, wonderful, oh! and laughing, 

Passed Aphrodite. 

All the earth mourned bitterly for that passing. 

All the sea sobbed, beaten on lonely beaches, 

Yet with deep song, seeing that even heartache 

Throbbed of her beauty. 

But in one place something remained, a fragrance 
Haunting that bed, radiant now with sunlight, 
Something man might never forget forever, 

Once he had known it. 

Wherefore, now, let nothing be said against her. 

Nothing be said, seeing that unto Lethe, 

What of her fair body and grace and glory. 

We shall remember. 


[HI] 


The King of the Black Isles 


ALCAICS 

0 Wind, O West Wind, singing of Hesperus, 

Blow, blow again now, laden with amaranth. 

Over the place where she lies dreaming. 

Whisper and say to her words I dare not! 

Bid her forsake—ah!—bid her forsake for me 
Old cold delights long banished by Artemis 
Who, on far Latmus, faint with passion. 

Kisses Endymion’s face in secret! 

Oh, blow awake, with music aeolian, 

Eyes that deny me more than to sing to them! 
Breathe in that mouth desire for comfort 

Sweeter than tears on the mouths of maidens! 

Saying, “He loves thee, Sappho!” and saying it 
Not as with pride, but tenderly, tenderly, 

As of my heart, wherein are only 

Song and the ache of her singing beauty. 

Thus, then, it may be she will remember me, 

0 Wind, 0 West Wind, sigh and remember me 
When I am gone to fields of Orcus 

Far from the sea and the sun forever! 


[ 112 ] 


The King of the Black Isles 


PROPHECY 

There shall be kings again to ride 
The chariots of countless wars 
And build of porphyry and jade 
Vast palaces beneath the stars. 

There shall be nobles proud and grim 
In insolence of blazonries. 

And women beautiful for sin 
And wines of many vintages. 

And time shall dance his rigadoon 
On ivory and amber dials. 

And there shall be great singers then, 
And music torn from virgin viols. 


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